‘Vampire Diaries’ Recap: Elena Faces Her First Kill

With her brother’s life at stake (pun!) Elena found herself in a dark place — but did she give in to her murderous urges?

A funny thing happened when Elena (Nina Dobrev) sprouted fangs: People actually started to see some value in her! So when Connor (Todd Williams) took three of Mystic Falls’ finest humans hostage on the Nov. 8 episode of The Vampire Diaries, Damon (Ian Somerhalder) encouraged Elena to help out, despite Stefan’s (Paul Wesley) stern warning. And I’ll give you one guess as to which brother she listened to.

Channeling her inner Katherine, Elena busted into the Mystic Grill to save Jeremy (Steven R. McQueen) and the others. And even though a little explosion caused Elena to lose Connor, she eventually caught up with him in the tunnel — promptly feeding on him, then snapping his little hunter neck.

But because Elena is a crackpot of emotions, the next scene found her crying in the woods and digging a hole to bury Connor in. Her horrifying reaction continued that night, as she hallucinated that someone wrote “KILLER” in blood in her bathroom. Let the insanity begin!

Stefan also revealed the truth about the vampire cure to Damon, which prompted him to pose an interesting question: Does he want to cure Elena because he thinks she can’t survive as a vampire, or because he really only loves her as a human?

“I’m fine with her either way,” Damon said. “So if I do this, I’m doing it for you.” Oh snap!

What happens in the Appalachian Mountains stays in the Appalachian Mountains:

While Tyler (Michael Trevino) and Caroline (Candice Accola) largely stayed out of the hostage situation, they had their own drama to deal with at home. During a particularly foolish phone call, Klaus (Joseph Morgan) brought up Tyler’s past with Hayley (Phoebe Tonkin) — and, of course, Caroline’s super hearing picked up every last word.

Tyler later explained to Caroline that nothing happened between him and Hayley, and he’s just letting Klaus think he has something on him, but I’m not so sure Caroline is buying it. And frankly, I’m not sure I am, either.

(Side note: Who else died of giggles when Hayley said, “I don’t do teen drama?” Phoebe, girl, you live teen drama!)

Jeremy Gilbert — vampire hunter?

Jeremy got shot during his little stand-off with Connor at the Mystic Grill, so for those of you keeping score at home, this is the second time he’s been gunned down at his place of employment. I know it’s hard to find a good job in this economy, but there’s got to be something else out there. Anything, really.

And even though he made it out unscathed — thanks, vampire blood — Jeremy was left with a far worse mark: there’s a hunter tattoo forming on his hand! I know The CW foreshadowed this in the promotional photos for season four, but it didn’t make me any more prepared. Or any less worried.

And now, for my favorite part of every recap: The weekly Stelena/Delena breakdown:

It was, admittedly, not a great week for either Salvatore ship. Though Elena listened to Damon over Stefan, she quickly changed her tune and made Damon the scapegoat for her own mistake. I was starting to like Elena as a vampire, but now I’m not so sure.

How did you feel about this week’s episode? Do you want Elena to become a human? Do you think Tyler did more with Hayley than he’s admitting? And how do you predict Jeremy’s new dilemma will play out? Drop me a comment with your thoughts and heories!

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Golden

Posted at 2:54 PM on November 19, 2012

I prefer Stefan wih elena his a great guy and shows his luv for elena in different ways but his brother some one that dnt likes his humanity to manifes only if he luvs someone that he can let it show but in season three stefan is hiding his humanity cause of claus bt i pray in season for let him be back with elena again…..they both match to each other………….i luv u all thanks for a great show like this it has changed my life in some ways thanks stefan,elena and others and to the write of the show a big thanks to you.

I luv all of them.but i want stelena and delena to be together.stefan is a really great guy nd elena needs to see that. She has to choose her guy which i certainly want to be stephan.wel i luv stelena more as a human than as a vampire

You know, I would be super ticked if they find a cure for precious elena, and she turns back into human. I think that is a cop out. They need to keep her a vamp and make her deal with it and grow. Stop the dang whining and make the change.

I think Stefan is selfish. He was selfish with his brother, because he didn’t want be vampire alone, and now has been selfish with Elena. I do not trust what he’s really thinking about what is best for her.

Super series! It is good that Elena became the vampire, it super-female.Tyler and Hayley’s history is interesting to nobody.Tonkin is monotonous always and isn’t interesting.I hope Jeremy becomes the cool guy!The best in The Vampire Diaries is Nina Dobrev!

razed in the episode “the killer”! Elena has to be a vampire yes, because, let’s agree that the story is much more interesting. Hayley and Tyler, can not be good, he and Caroline are perfect together, let them in peace. hahaha

I actually disagree with you @Claire. Elena is more like Damon in the long run, because she will do anything and everything for the people she loves. She killed Connor not because Damon told her to, she did it because Connor had threatened Jeremy’s life (by shooting the kid). You could tell this also because before Damon had specifically told her to kill Connor, Damon was arguing with Stefan on the plan for rescuing the hostages. Damon wanted to rip Connors heart out and ELENA AGREED with his plan. She will go to those extremes and she will kill for the ones she loves. It’s just fact. She does feel remorse, but it’s not similar to Stefan at all. I only see Stefan remorseful about blood, never seen him mention his sorrow and guilt over his ripper sprees. Stefan lacks control when it comes to blood, Elena has that control. Right now I see no similarities between the two. And I don’t think they see them either given they have turned to an inanimate object (diary) to express their feelings rather than each other. With Elena being a vampire her feelings are not the only thing magnified, her differences from Stefan are too. This will definitely lead to a fallout.

Sidenote: Stefan’s words were sweet about still loving her as a vampire at the end, but he ruined that moment the second he said “but she’s not supposed to be this person… I DON’T WANT HER TO BE.” Her true self is magnified when a vampire… So do you not want her to be her? What?

I agree with you. That last line “I dont want her to be” was a huge turn off for me too… I really like Damon and I appreciate him more now.. Especially after he said he’d love Elena either way, human or vampire.

I want Elena to stay as a vampire, because i just feel like Delena has more of a chance of happening if she’s stays a vampire, and as Damon said to Stefan, he loves her either way, if she’s human or not, and I’m beginning to think that Stefan really only loves her as a human, and thats not true love. and anyway, if she turns back into a human, Stefan will eventually lose her because she’s gonna die, right??? So shouldn’t he want her to stay a vampire? I just really hope to see some amazing DELENA scenes soon… and can’t wait till next week:)

@anam. Totally agree. The books are just an inspiration source to the tv series. I think they only took the characters from the books, nothing more. And the characters in the books differ a lot from the tv series: Caroline becomes a werewolf, Tyler is an enemy, Klaus dies after almost none existing participation, there is no original family, no Jeremy and Meredith in the books share only the same name and love interest in the tv series. Do you like the books??? I really find them so confusing and bad, I wouldn’t recommend the books to any of my friends, even if they wathced the show. I love the tv series and I find it more exciting than the twilight series, but I have to say that Stephanie Meyer is the really talented writer who made the whole “vampire cult phenomenon” such a success. L.J. Smith’s first vampire diaries novel was published in 1991, but the vampires became really hot with twilight a decade later. What does that say about L.J. Smith’s writing skills??? The only reason TVD (tv) exists is because of the twilight success.